The Uttarakhand High Court, which recently recognize Ganga and Yamuna river as “living human entities”,now extended the order to include a wide range of natural entities like all the glaciers, including Gangotri and Yamunotri, rivers, streams, rivulets, lakes, air, meadows, dales, jungles, forests wetlands, grasslands, springs and waterfall within the ambit of a “juristic person”.
While according this status to entities, court made a special attention towards Gangotri and Yamnotri glaciers, saying, Gangotri is one of the largest glaciers in the Himalyas. However, it is receding fast. Yamunotri Glacier is also receding at an alarming rate.
Consequently, all corresponding rights, duties, liabilities and rights akin to fundamental and legal rights of a living person be conferred on the aforementioned, so as to preserve and conserve them. In order to clarify the judgment court said juristic person can be any subject matter other than a human being to which the law attributes personality for good and sufficient reasons.
Court also devolved responsibility upon some eminent lawyers to act as legal guardians of the natural entities and also directed to shut down industries, hotels and ashrams discharging sewage into the Ganges, constitution of an Inter-State Council so as to create a Ganga-Specific Statutory Authority within six months.
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